How IT Can Improve Healthcare in America

Healthcare in the United States results in over 1.2 trillion dollars in wasteful spending every year. 17 billion dollars of that is do to medical errors that should be easily prevented by well designed Knowledge system.  The system in hospital would be able to produce reports on each patient that walks through the door which could minimize duplicate test and less paper work for the patient on arrival.  Also instead of doctors hand writing prescriptions they would type it into the system which would minimize errors on incorrect dosages which occur too often and can result in death.  Reducing errors in the medical community would also reduce the amount of malpractice suits which is a larger part of the waste as well. With hospitals able to share information instantly this would allow faster diagnosis and less questions for the patient and less chance for error due to leaving out information that the patient may believe is insignificant. 

Linda Mason Lecture

Linda Mason gave a very inspiring lecture about how she left her cushy job making good money to start her own humanitarian business during a recession to give her live more meaning.  The message of the lecture is that you should find a way to incorporate your skills and interest in order to give your life meaning. Listening to the lecture has inspired me to maybe think of a way to use some of my skills in different ways so that I can feel like I am making more of a difference in the world and possibly giving my life more meaning.

Knowledge as an Asset

Companies must treat Knowledge as a strategic asset because in my opinion it is the most important asset that a they can possess. In order for a company to succeed they must know what their customers want and need from them. Knowledge also helps a company from within and find out how they can be more efficient when dealing with customers or work inside the company. Knowledge is an asset that helps keep the company efficient and when is working efficiently they are also saving themselves money by not coming up with repetitive solutions. 

Increasing Return

The concept of increasing returns is when you add a variable to something you get a higher return. As opposed to the law of diminishing returns when add a new variable and you get a decreasing return for every additional variable that is added to the equation.

 

What increasing returns means in the IT world is that the more you add to your current system the more you should be able to get out of that system whether it be getting information to more people or more people giving info themselves.  If you increase the size of a network then the more use and information you should be able to get out of the network.

Lessons learned

A successful Km is tied to understanding the culture of the communities in the company and that one solution doesn’t fit every communities needs. Also when first implementing the it is best to use a short- term pilot project the way Xerox did in France.

Difficulties in Implementing the KMS

The most challenging part of implementing the system for Xerox was getting its employees to use the system.  Employees did not want an added duty to the their daily work day. The company decided to provide the engineers the ability to author their posts and solutions so that they would get credit. “Once we enabled the them to attach their name, it became a professional peer process. They’re proud of their solutions and are recognized for it” Holtshouse explained. Also there is a danger if taking away resources and time from other priorities.  

Xerox KM Benefits

Like I said before Eureka, the KM system, keeps employees from reinventing the wheel. This is evident from the fact the system has prevented at least 300,000 redundant solutions. Holtshouse, Xerox director of Corporate Strategy,  states “Eureka was developed so once somebody spends a lot of time developing this expensive answer, it gets shared, and other employees don’t have to repeat it.” and “Customers get better service because when it occurs again, someone else doesn’t have to spend that much time on it. It’s also a significant cost reduction opportunity and encourages high involvement in the organization as reps create the knowledge bas and use it.”

Xerox currently saves between 5 and 10 percent on labor and parts costs from the success of its Eureka project. One example of this is when a Canadian colleague had entered the solution to a problem that was posted by Brazilian engineer. Instead of replacing the copier the which would have cost $40,000 all that was required was a 90 cent part.    

Xerox’s Solution

In order to solve the companies problems of loss data and having to reinvent the wheel Xerox implemented two knowledge management systems, Eureka and Docushare. These systems allow employees to access data from across the company, look for previously solved problems, and post problems in the hopes that it gets solved by some one in the company.

Why Xerox Implemented a KM System

Xerox was concerned over the loss of a number of things that come with the down sizing of the company due to the economy and employees leaving for other reasons.  Xerox needed a way to retain the data employees took with them when they leave the company.  By implementing a knowledge management system  current employees could be much more efficient by not having to reinvent the wheel and having place to find information that people across the company had put into the system not having to rely just on the engineers located in their home office.
The ultimate reason the company implemented the system was the same any other company would bring in a KM system and that reason is money.  By having a larger group of people working on problems and pooling data into the system the more efficient employees will make fewer costly mistakes.